1 - The BIG news is that on Saturday morning, June 3, right before I left to go to our church's Men's Prayer Breakfast, I received an email from our recent candidate for our Grade 3 Teacher position for 2017-18! I actually was going to wait to open the email until after the Prayer Breakfast, but gave in and opened it. Thank you all for standing with us in prayer for our teacher openings this year. I am happy to announce that our newest teacher at ICS-P for 2017-18 is Ms. Janet Colgain! Yes, Ms. Colgain accepted our offer and is excited about joining our community of teachers, staff, students, and parents at ICS-Pyeongtaek!!! We are on a time crunch now to complete the process for obtaining her visa in order for her to travel to South Korea and teach at ICS-P. Thank you for praying that all will go smoothly in the visa process for Ms. Colgain!
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2 - Monday, I was asked by the Elementary School Principal at YISS to do a Skype session with the OASIS elementary children during their VBS week! I was delighted to do this and it was so much fun seeing the cherubs I had worked with - some of them for 6 years!
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3 - On Tuesday, I had the privilege of sharing during the Middle School Chapel. The theme for our Chapels this year has been "Put on the WHOLE armor of God." Since the Middle School has not been doing a lot of music in their Chapels this year, I asked our first-grade teacher, Ms. Hunter, and our fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Gross, to prepare a couple worship/dance songs that centered on the armor of God. The MS kids loved these cherubs and the ES singers and dancers were so excited to share their songs! After they finished, I centered in on the piece of armor called the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God! I was encouraged with the attentiveness of the MS students and they even enjoyed my magic trick using a paper tear that centered on the Word of God and why it is not able to be destroyed.
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4 - Wednesday I traveled to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to meet with the Regional Security Officer and the Deputy Regional Security Officer. Both men were very helpful in giving me some valuable information on how to prepare ICS-Pyeongtaek for emergencies that would require an evacuation of our staff or keeping our students at the school for up to 72 hours if needed. This will be very valuable to our Leadership team as we review our Emergency Preparedness Plan (EPP) for various types of emergencies at the school. They said that at this point that there is no reason to be alarmed, but everyone, especially those in South Korea who are foreigners, to be prepared. Thanks for praying for us as we evaluate our EPP for the next school year.
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5 - Field Day on Friday! Yeppers, on Friday, all students were involved in the annual Field Day at ICS-P! Lots of fun activities organized this year by the Student Council under the direction of Ms. Gaul and Mr. Hannings. Even some of the seniors came to school to help out. HS and MS students and teachers assisted in the many excellent activities throughout the day. Some took place in our Gymnasium and some on the community Soccer Field that we are able to use. During the afternoon, I needed to leave with the Seniors for a final graduation ceremony rehearsal. So it was a busy day. Below are some of the photos from that day. I will most likely not place a caption under each of them. I hope it still gives you an idea of the activities the students enjoyed. I escaped in time for graduation rehearsal to avoid all of the water activities! :-)
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6 - 2017 ICS-Pyeongtaek Commencement! Saturday was the big day for our nine seniors! The ceremony began at 5:00 PM at the Shinga Wedding Hall in Songtan, about 25 minutes from the school. We had the graduation at this location this year instead of our Gym since two of our seniors have mothers who work at the school. These two ladies usually do most of the decorating and cooking for the ceremony and dinner that follows the ceremony. We wanted them to just enjoy the special evening rather than doing a lot of preparation and cooking for a big meal. All went well and everyone had a great time as we celebrated the graduation of these fine young people! I am going to post some pictures so that you can pray for these special young ladies and men as they begin this next chapter in their lives! It was a great evening and I believe God was honored in this special evening!
Graduation ticket for 2017!
ICS-P Orchestra rehearsing in the ceremony hall! ICS-P has never had an orchestra until this year! They continue to do an amazing job! They performed two pieces for Graduation!
Sue-eun "Sara" Bae
JuYoung Choi
JiHeon "Jeanie" Chung, Valedictorian!
Ianne Joy Haselman (Business Manager's daughter)
HyeongJun "Justin" Kim
Kyungin Lee
Mokin Lee accepted his diploma with
a Korean bow to GGG.
Another picture of Mokin Lee, Salutatorian!
Sydney Ann Machen
Fumika "Sandra" Okamoto (Cafeteria Cook's Daughter)
Here I am with an amazing young man following the ceremony. I believe God has great things in store for our Salutatorian and Student Body President, Mokin Lee!
Here I am with Tony Kuhn with Mr. and Mrs. Okamoto and Sandra! Mark, Sandra's brother took the picture. He didn't want to be in the picture he said!
Graduation cake for the Class of 2017!
The beautiful hall where the meal was enjoyed after the ceremony! Beautifully decorated by the Office staff of ICS-P!
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7 - I have a couple recent pictures of Cora the Conqueror for you. So many of you have been praying for Cora and her family. I love these two pictures from this last week. Everyone loved that Cora was also able to attend her first graduation ceremony!
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8 - Sunday at church, my new friend, Tommy, came to church. Tommy started coming a year ago but has not been very regular. When I first met him, we hit it off really well and have enjoyed some wonderful talks. Tommy is married to a wonderful lady and they have a precious 3-year old daughter. Tommy speaks very good English, but so far his wife and daughter have not come to the English-speaking service. They attend the Korean service. I finally got a couple pictures of him and would ask you to pray for him and his family. Tommy teaches at an English Academy (Hagwon) and sometimes the hours don't permit him to come to church. Please pray that he will be able to come and continue to grow in his faith. He stayed for our Bible study after the regular church service today and it was great to have him take part in the discussion.
GGG and Tommy at Dae Kwang Church on Sunday!
Tommy wanted to be taller than GGG so we took this one after I bent down to be a little lower!
This is the little daughter of Tommy and his wife!
Tommy with his beautiful daughter!
They were at the beach and here is Tommy's daughter
posing like a model with her cousin! :-)
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OK, I wrote more than I thought I would. :-) I would appreciate your prayers for this final week for students. Kindergarten graduation will be on Tuesday at 2:00 PM. Oh, that reminds me! Something very exciting happened this past Thursday before lunch! There was an Elementary School Chapel in the morning and right before lunch, two kinder cherubs came to my office. Mrs. Lee came to my door and said that she thought I would want to see these little ladies. They came in with big smiles. The one little one, Iori, had the paper that she is holding in the picture below. Her friend was very excited to bring her to my office to share the news! In case you can't read the message she wrote in the photo below, here is what was on it: "I prayed and asked Jesus to be my Saviour. I am a Christian." :-) The angels in heaven had a party that day and so did we!
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I will stop! Aren't you happy about that? :-) Thank you so much for your faithful love, care, encouragement, mail, emails, prayers, and gifts! I trust that you will enjoy a great week! Yeppers, it is June! Enjoy!
Love, Gregg
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